Apple today made a small change to the way Apple IDs work, and for the first time, Apple customers who have an Apple ID that uses a third-party email address can update that Apple ID to use an Apple @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com email address.

Prior to today, an Apple ID that used a third-party email address could be changed to another third-party email address, but there wasn't an option to use one of the Apple email accounts that are created when an Apple ID is made.

The change was outlined by MacRumors reader Dillon, who sent an email to several executives earlier this month asking for the problem to be changed. Dillon was contacted by Apple Executive Relations last week and was told Apple's engineering team would look into the problem. He received a second phone call today, letting him know the issue had been fixed. From Dillon:

For a long time if you had an Apple ID that used a 3rd party email address as your Apple ID you were unable to change it to an Apple email address... even if the Apple address was on the same account.

I couple of weeks ago I sent an email addressed to Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, Phil Schiller, and Eddy Cue. I explained the situation and asked if they could fix it. Last week I received an email and phone call from someone at Apple Executive Relations. The women I spoke to told me that the problem would be sent to an engineering team and would be addressed. Today I got another call and email informing me that the issue had been resolved.

I tried it out and sure enough... I can finally set my Apple email as my Apple ID!

Apple's "Change Your Apple ID" support document was today updated to reflect the updates made to the Apple ID, and it now includes a section confirming a third-party email address can be changed to an @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com email address.

When swapping from a third-party Apple ID email address to an email address ending in @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com, Apple warns that there is no way to change it back to a third-party email account.

If you enter a new Apple ID that ends with @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com, you see a message to confirm. When you change your Apple ID to an @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com account, you can't change it back to a third-party email account. Your former Apple ID that ends with a third-party email, becomes an additional email address for your Apple ID account.

This should be a welcome change for all Apple customers who have wanted to change their Apple ID addresses to an official Apple email address. Those who want to go ahead and swap should read Apple's support document and follow all of the steps, which include signing out of all iOS devices before making the change.

Update: While this feature is working for some users, others report being unable to change their Apple IDs. It's possible this feature has not yet rolled out to all users, or that it's not fully functional as of yet. It's unclear at this point why it's not working for some people.

So... if I have a feature request for Apple that I REALLY want fixed or added, I just send an email to Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, Phil Schiller, and Eddy Cue? And it will be changed within a couple weeks? Okay. :)

But when I first started it was with an iPhone, and back then I used a @ gmail account. My the time I changed over to (MobileMe) iCloud, I’ve bought to much, so I did not want to rebuy everything.

So now I have one iCloud account, that obviously is @ icloud, and five other on my family sharing plan, and one @ gmail account that only used in iTunes and AppStore.

So will this solve my problem, and give me the possibility to transfer all my bought items over to @ icloud And will it in any other way affect my @ icloud account?

Any helpful response is much appreciated!

Exactly what I want to know, I am in the same position (albeit with a yahoo e-mail addr). iTunes/AppStore purchase through this Apple ID. I also have a [USER=232]@me[/USER]/iCloud Apple ID (which I use for everything else) which I would want these purchased/iTunes Match etc. to all go through....

"You can change your Apple ID to any other email address* ('https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202667#china') you control, as long as it's not already in use as an Apple ID." i.e. you can't merge existing Apple IDs for those of you wishing to do so and who might be confusing matters.

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